Thursday, August 13, 2015

Phew.

Well, actually first I should say 'Harumph'.

And then, a week and a half later I can say "Phew!".

What's the hubbub?

For reasons still unexplained, my wheelbuilding website went down early last week. Kaput. At first, before I knew it was down, I was enjoying a lack of emails to respond to, allowing me to get caught up on a few things around the shop.

Sometime Tuesday it started to seem unnaturally quiet, so I went looking and found an error message when I tried to load the site.

Thus followed a week of almost unbelievable emails and phone calls to the old host (largely placed on my behalf by Greg Luck and Robb Reece) where no one could explain why the site was down, no one seemed to give a rip that it was, and no one showed any impetus whatsoever in helping to get it back up.

And that was when people bothered to answer the phone or respond to emails.

So I just essentially had an unpaid 9 days in the shop.

Compounding that, I woke with a pinched nerve last weekend and have been unable to ride, or paddle, or really do much of anything other than sit at my desk where nothing much is happening.

Fortunately, I had the time to tidy up some minuscule accounting details and if not for that I wouldn't have noticed a few unauthorized charges on my accounts. While Europcar and GermanSingles might, in some future time, be businesses that I patronize, I have not yet done so. Thus followed a few stressful phone calls and trips down to the bank to get all of that squared away.

While I was dealing with other things, Robb and Greg went to bat to get the site back online, with just a few minor details to touch up when time permits.

I'm sharing this because many people reached out in different ways to let me know the site was down, many others were concerned that I'd stopped building wheels altogether, and others reached out to ask for a heads-up when the site was live again.

So there it is: The site is live, as am I, and as soon as the emails start to filter through the ether I'll be back to building wheels, business as usual.